“It is of no use to continue the discussion if you only lose your temper and throw your manners to the winds----” “Harry’s manners!” chuckled Wilfred; but nobody took any notice of him. “Say what you mean then, or by----” “I only mean that I should have neglected my opportunities, and put a cruel slight upon a very pretty girl, if I had not got a kiss when I wished her good-night.” “She would never have spoken to you again if you had done such a thing. She would have boxed your ears----” “She would have done nothing of the kind. Your experience being confined to barmaids, who very naturally resent your rough overtures in the free-and-easy manner you describe, you cannot tell how a woman of more refinement accepts the homage due to her charms when it is properly offered.” “I think this is blackguard talk,” said Wilfred; but the time had long gone past for him to get a hearing. “You think she would have let you kiss her willingly?” said Harry, not so loudly as before, but with his whole frame quivering with restless excitement. “I don’t wish to be boastful, but I think it most likely.” “It’s a----” Stephen shook his cousin’s arm. “Let him prove it, Harry; let him prove it.” But Harry shrunk from that. He was as thoughtless and unprincipled as the rest of them; but he was not _blasé_. He was only twenty; and some instincts of chivalry and respect for the beautiful girl whose name was being bandied about so freely made him hesitate. “He knows better than to agree to that!” sneered George. “Why don’t you try to be beforehand with him?” suggested Stephen. “I will, by Jove!” said Harry, stung and excited past all scruples. “We’ll see if my rough overtures may not be more to her taste than your what-do-you-call-it homage. I bet Fire King to a five-pound note I’ll have a kiss from her to-morrow.” “Willingly, mind?” “Willingly.” “Done, then! But how am I to be sure you have won fairly if you come and claim it?” “You will have my word.” There was a general laugh. There are some families, as lawless as the Braithwaites, in which truth is part of their code, and a lie held to be beneath a gentleman; but the Braithwaites, while fiercely proud of their birth, considered that it placed them above obligations, and that the title “gentleman,” descended to them from their fathers, was a sort of inherited, inalienable fortune which required no effort of theirs to support or to increase. However, Harry having refused to let the bet hold except on this condition, it was resolved to trust him, George having fully made up his mind to supplement his brother’s account of the interview by the evidence of his own eyes.